Anglo-Saxons

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The famous parade helmet found at Sutton Hoo, probably belonging to King Raedwald of East Anglia circa 625. Based on a Roman parade helmet design (of a general class known as spangenhelm), it has decorations like those found in contemporary Swedish helmets found at Old Uppsala (Collection of the British Museum)

Anglo-Saxon means usually the culturally and linguistically similar peoples living in the south and east of the island Great Britain (modern England) from around the mid-5th century AD to the Norman conquest of 1066.

They are believed to have spoken Germanic languages and are identified by Bede as the descendants of three powerful tribes, Angles, Saxons, and Jutes.

[change] Anglo-Saxon migration

The main Anglo-Saxon Kingdoms circa A.D. 600

There is considerable debate as to the extent of Anglo-Saxon migration from the fourth to the sixth centuries. Earlier interpretations saw large numbers of Anglo-Saxon settlers arrive, essentially killing or displacing the British people living in southern and eastern Britain at the time. Such an interpretation finds support in the linguistic and place-name evidence. Linguistically, not only did Old English emerge as the language of the English kingdoms, but very few Brythonic words found their way into the language. The rarity of settlement names with Brythonic origins (as opposed to villages taking the name of a nearby stream with a Celtic name etc.) over most of England is taken by some as evidence of Saxon settlement rather than continuity.

First page of Beowulf.

More recently the focus has shifted towards continuity, trying to place Britain in the context of European Late Antiquity. Some of this argument is based on scale. The population of Britain in 400 is unknowable, but is estimated, based on land usage, to have been around 2 million.^[1] It is considered unlikely that such a large population was significantly killed or displaced between the fifth and sixth centuries.^[2] Much of the argument for continuity is based on archaeological evidence.

[change] References

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↑ Epidemics could certainly have reduced the population of Britain. There is contemporary analytical evidence for multiple waves of plague and famine - e.g. Irish Annals, Gildas, and Bede's account of the plague in his youth - which are also known from Mediterranean sources.